What's on My Mind

I'm moving. I'm not in a huge hurry because my lease isn't done for a month, but I started taking things off my wall today. It was weird because this place has become such a safe haven for me. Weird, I don't know when I started to feel so comfortable here, but now that I am I can tell it's going to be really hard to close the door that one last time.

This is my first apartment all on my own. No roomates, no parents, no one to answer to. No one around when I want to be alone, to unwind, to be totally free to be me. No one to get mad if I talk on the phone too late or too early, no one to share hot water with, no one to share the remote with. Living alone really is one of the greatest things and I highly recommend everyone try it at least once in life.

Of course it has it's down side. It can be lonely sometimes. And my rent was sort of ridiculous considering I have two jobs and (somehow) a personal life so I really am hardly ever home. I sleep here and keep my stuff here, for the most part, but there are those random times I can actually sit down and watch a movie or catch the (very) handsome guy on The Office ((more about him later)).

The rent was never really a problem, though. I could justify paying it every month because I love being here so much. But it wasn't always that way. The closest I ever came to being an alcoholic...and there have been a lot of times I came close...was when I first moved in here. Being all alone at night terrified me. (You wouldn't believe how many noises you hear when you are on your own for the first time. The pipes, the ceiling fan, the wind blowing the blinds or leaves fluttering against the windows.) I share a building with probably 30 other people, but for some reason whenever I heard a noise I convinced myself that it was a mouse scrambling around my apartment. I would be so sure that I would look around for it. (Sometimes I think I look for what I am afraid of just to know it is there. Then I can deal with it.) When the creatures didn't appear, I would go to the refrigerator to make a "comfort drink", which was later followed by another. Never a beer or glass of wine, these comfort drinks were mostly liquor with a little bit of something to make my soother a little easier to swallow. I would have one or two, and eventually three, of these every single night, I would leave the television and the ceiling fan on and curl up in a ball and pass out drunk. I didn't ever stay awake and worry because the alcohol knocked me, perfectly contently, out.

I should mention here that I never once have been afraid of intruders. I'm on the first floor of an apartment building in the center of Worcester (If I walk a mile south and wait an hour I will either get abducted or witness a murder...seriously. But a mile north and the houses are worth more than 10 normal houses where I come from). I never felt like my life was at risk even though my windows have bars on them. I only worried that I would have to use a frying pan to kill a mouse and then muster up the courage to dispose of it. (I purposely never brought a jar of peanut butter into my apartment because I didn't even want to tempt those furry little buggers in here. Blocks of cheese either. I'm a big Tom and Jerry fan and I learned a lot about mice from that show. As long as my apartment didn't have the good foods and the little doorways on the floor, I was going to survive this living alone thing.)

Whether my fears were logical or not, I eventually cut the drinking and realized that the noises always made sense. Water running through a pipe stopped bothering me and I moved on. I grew to love my apartment like I do now. My big open room has been perfect for snuggling with guys (even though by now most of them have come in and out of my life), getting ready for the bars with my girls, and even playing beer pong (yeah, that's a mess to clean up in the morning). My apartment has survived drunken accidents, fights, makeups, breakups, and all the good and bad in between and has helped me grow up a little. Just a little.

(This picture is my friend Shauna and I outside my apartment earlier this year. She was going to crash at my place after a night out but our friend stopped over with sidewalk chalk...so we used it.)

So as I start to take my pictures off the wall, box up my favorite belongings and memories, I am thankful for what this apartment has brought to my life and sad to say goodbye to it. But I am hopeful too. The next one might be even better.